Resolved: It is morally permissible for victims to use deadly force as a deliberate response to repeated domestic violence.

Seeing as my first tournament on this topic is this weekend and I'll pretty much be screwed unless I get a practice round in to help me formulate my case, I need someone to debate this with me before Saturday. First round is for acceptance. 24 hours is the time to argue, and the max for word count is 8k.

(Please feel free to critique my case in the comments and make suggestions so that I might improve it. All improvements will be made to the case after this debate. I really need help, and I need help brainstorming for new contentions since I only have one so far. My first tournament on this topic is Saturday.)

The following is an excerpt from the 2005 publishing from Springer, Law & Philosophy:

‘Assume that a capable aggressor, Greta, decides to play Russian roulette with an unwilling participant, Harry. She has loaded a chamber, spun the revolver, and now she points the gun at Harry. Harry faces a decision. He can either pull out the gun he has and shoot Greta, or he can wait and hope that the bullet is not in the fateful chamber. Faced with a one-in-six chance that he will soon be dead, Harry kills Greta. As it turns out, the bullet was not in the decisive chamber.’

‘How should we characterize Harry’s action? Was it wrong? Right? Justified? Excused? Mistaken? In this case, Harry has taken what we might characterize as a ‘justifiable risk,’ but he has simultaneously killed someone needlessly.’

The previous excerpt has perfectly preceded my case. Regardless of the rationality of the game Russian roulette, one can see that Harry deliberately pulled out his gun with the intent to kill Greta. However, Greta’s intent was not to kill Harry. While Harry can be sure that his shooting of the gun would result in the death of Greta, Harry cannot be sure that Greta’s pulling of the trigger would result in his own death. This is a perfect analogy of the type of situation that is represented in this debate. While Greta’s behavior toward Harry is immoral in itself, Harry’s use of deadly force on Greta that lead to her death was an immoral action, meaning that the use of deadly force in situations of abuse is not morally permissible. Seeing as the debate calls for only proving that the use of deadly force is not morally permissible and doesn’t call for my providing of proof that one action is more moral than the other, I can end my introduction stating that neither the abuser nor the victim whose intent is to kill is morally right—both are morally wrong, thus proving the negative as correct.

Before I begin, I would like to define a few recurring terms that will appear throughout: Secular morality is a branch of moral philosophy in which ethics is based solely on human faculties such as logic, reason or moral intuition, and not derived from purported supernatural revelation or guidance (which is the source of religious ethics). Deadly force is the force in which a person uses, causing or that a person knows, or should know, would create a substantial risk of causing death or serious bodily harm.

My value for this round is secular morality, while my criterion is a rational society.

Contention 1: In a situation where the action of the resolution is fulfilled, both the abuser and the victim would be engaging in immoral behavior. As I stated before, the resolution only asks that the negative disprove the moral permissiveness of using deadly force on a person. When referring to law, both murder and manslaughter are acts where the one committing has the intent to do serious damage or kill, the only difference being that during the act of manslaughter the doer of said act is not in a state of coherency so that they might be responsible for one’s actions. Both actions call for punishment by law, and as anything that is punishable by law is generally associated with immoral behavior; acts where one has the intent to kill or seriously harm rather than incapacitate are immoral. The resolution does not state that the victim of the domestic abuse only wishes to use force enough to incapacitate one’s abuser—an action which has no ill-intent and only the intent to protect oneself. The resolution states specifically that the intent of the victim is death or fatality to their abuser, an immoral act.

Reasons for voting decision: Although I wish this debate had actually happened, I awarded Pro conduct points for his good manners and thoughtful surrender. (Also, there is somewhat of a votebomb against him right now, so I may as well give him something)